


Minuet & Trio

by Lisafer



Category: The Song of the Lioness - Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Comedy of Errors, F/M, Forum: Goldenlake, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-10 23:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisafer/pseuds/Lisafer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone’s sending signals, but maybe they’re being misinterpreted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Minuet & Trio

_It doesn’t mean anything_ , Raoul tells himself. _She smiles at everyone._

Cythera is easily the friendliest lady at court, if not in the entirety of Tortall. She never refuses a dance, unless she’s already spoken for (which happens more times that Raoul cares to count). She’s kind to everyone – even the lechers and the drunks and the snooty noblewomen who look down their noses at everyone. 

He tends to counter the light feeling in his heart (which arises, as ever, when she flashes her sweet smile at him) with pessimism and doubt, and – is she dancing with Gary _again_?

“No one is as beautiful as Lady Cythera,” Alan says with a sigh, refilling Raoul’s goblet with more of the dry wine he prefers.

_Alan, too?_

“Lady Gwynnen seems pretty enough,” Raoul says. _Not even close_. “She seems more your type, anyway.” He ruffles Alan’s hair and smirks. The smirk is because he doesn’t think anyone is Alan’s type, really. He’d never really met someone less sexual than Trebond. 

_That’s probably what he thinks of me_ , he realizes with a snort.

“Are you all right?” Alan peers up at him, concern etched all over a face that couldn’t hide truths if he’d wanted to.

“I’m fine.” Raoul throws back the drink and puts the goblet on the tray Alan’s balancing precariously. A little too precariously, given that a wee bit of force knocks it sideways and the goblets – mostly filled – clatter all over the floor. The cacophony of broken glass, ladies squeals, and the occasionally out-of-tune viol from the string quintet draws attention from the dancers.

Cythera flashes another smile, this time his own way – _is this one sympathetic?_ \- to counter Alan’s menacing glare.

“Your poise never ceases to amaze me,” Douglass says to Alan, offering a towel to help clean up the mess. Gary and Cythera, Raoul notes from the corner of his eye, have concluded their dance.

“It wasn’t my doing,” Alan growls. 

“Can I help?” Cythera asks, kneeling beside Alan. Her voice is soft, but has a scratchiness to it that sometimes lends itself to Raoul’s fantasies about what married life with her could be like.

Alan flushes horribly. “I’ve got it,” he snaps. Then he apologizes for snapping and rushes off with Douglass, the mess almost completely gone. 

Cythera steps around the sticky residue on the parquet floor, taking a position at Raoul’s side. “How has your evening been?” she asks softly.

“It’s better now,” he replies, his voice low and husky. “It could get better still.”

“If you danced with me, it certainly would be.”

“I don’t dance.”

She sighs. “Yet you frown at me every time I dance with another man. Would you rather me spend my time skulking around the edges of the ballroom, unhappily observing everyone else’s fun and making them feel guilty for abandoning me?”

“Would you rather I hide behind the curtains, where you won’t see me?”

“Where you won’t judge me, and count how many times I dance with each knight?”

“Gary’s had six dances this evening.”

“He likes to dance,” she retorts. Her expression is still calm and serene, and there’s no trace of anger in her voice. But that’s Cythera’s way. “He’s mooning over Delia, anyway. I think he’s just using me as a way to circle the room and keep an eye on her while she’s with Prince Jonathan.”

“So I watch you as you watch Gary watching Delia?”

“Who’s watching the prince.”

“And who is Jon watching, then?”

She smiles. “When last I noticed, he had his eye on the fiasco in this corner. It’s not like Alan to drop things.”

“It’s entirely like Alan to drop things, if they’re too heavy. Have you seen how small he is?”

A tinkle of laughter escapes her lips. “If everyone shorter than you were considered small, we would be living in a world of tiny people.” Her eyes sparkled and she took his hand. “Dance with me, Raoul. Please.”

“I’ll look a fool,” he murmurs. He’s never been comfortable with dancing precisely because he towers over everyone. Even Cythera, who’s taller than most of the ladies at court.

“But you’ll be my fool,” she whispers, standing on the tips of her toes and leaning as close to his ear as possible.

_How can a fellow refuse when she asks like that?_

“Promise me,” he says, taking her hand in his and leading her to the center of the ballroom.

“Promise you what?”

“That you’ll always want to dance with me more than any other man in the king’s ballroom.”

She smiles up at him, even as she curtsies to mark the beginning of their movements. “That’s hardly something I would ever need to promise,” she says.

Raoul is aware of all the eyes on her, though. And for all of Gary’s interest in Delia, there is still some left for Cythera. Maybe he, like Raoul, has used Delia as a decoy. “Promise me forever, then?” he asks her, pulling her closer to his body than the dance steps warrant.

“That’s easy, too,” she replies tenderly, her lips curving into the shyest of smiles.


End file.
